Q: Why did you move; what do you do?
A: I had come to Johannesburg on a deputation for a couple of years.

About your city

Q: What did you enjoy most about Johannesburg, how was the quality of life?
A: The most enjoyable thing about Joburg is it is cosmopolitan in nature. In particular, people from India would find lot of Indian flavours spread through the city.

Q: How did you meet other Indian expats?
A: I lived in an area where most of my colleagues who came on deputation lived. It was not an Indian area, however. Indian expats can mainly be found in Fordsburg and Indian Hindu temples (in Marlboro, Melrose, Benoni and Midrand ). Midrand is a place where many people from Andhra (a provincial state) in India live.

Q: What exactly are the Indian flavours you’re talking about?
A: There are quite a few Indian restaurants located around Joburg. These include Swad in Melrose, Thava and Shahi Khana in Norwood and Delhi Darbar in Parkmore – to name a few.

Q: Any negatives? What did you miss most about home?
A: Lack of safe public transport. One needs to own a car in Johannesburg to travel safely.

Q: Is the city safe?
A: It is kind of safe. One needs to follow the Dos and Dont’s.

Keep your car windows up at all times, but especially when stopping at traffic signals (traffic signals are referred as robots in South Africa).

Keep doors locked at all times. It is advisable to install a security gate at your front door.

Always be aware of what is happening around you and be alert.

Dont:

Keep your luggage/purse/laptop near the driver seat or on the rear seats of the car where it is visible from outside.

Count cash in public.

Walk on the streets while using your mobile phone.

About living in Johannesburg

Q: Which are the best places/suburbs to live in Johannesburg as an expat?
A: Sandton, Morningside, Rivonia, Sunninghill, Parkmore, Roodeport, Weltevreden Park and Fourways.

Q: How do you rate the standard of accommodation?
A: Very good.

Q: What’s the cost of living compared to home? What is cheap or expensive in particular?
A: It is worth the money one pays for it.

Q: What are the locals like; did you mix mainly with other expats?
A: Locals are really hospitable. I lived with many Indians, so moved mainly in Indian expat circles.

Q: Was it easy meeting people and making friends?Did you make expat friends you wouldn’t have otherwise?
A: Yes, it was easy – South Africans are generally friendly, and making friends with locals is not a problem at all. Indian expats get connected very easily. On the flipside, especially in Joburg, there are a lot of Indian expats and you might feel overwhelmed by looking at the Indian expat population – you might be tempted to stick to little Indian groups living nearby or those you work with. Joburg has got a mix of Indian, European and African styles. A Indian expat would easily strike a balance between Indian and overseas living. Yes, I made few Indian connections here, whom I wouldn’t have met if I was working from India.

About working here

Q: Did you have a problem getting a work visa/permit?
A: Not really, my company had applied for my work permit, so I didn’t have difficulty getting a work permit or visa.

Q: What’s the economic climate like in Johannesburg, is there plenty of work?
A: When it comes to IT, there is lack of local skilled people. The economy is pretty decent and economically South Africa performed OK, although there were some retrenchments here and there. An Indian expat coming to South Africa would definitely feel that the infrastructure is really good and better than India. But I doubt an expat from Europe/ America would share the same feeling as I do.

Q: Are there other types of jobs that there are more of do you think? What jobs would you recommend other Indian expats come here to look for?
A: Information Technology is one of the areas where Indian expats can look for work. Like I said earlier, South Africa does not have enough skilled techies. Banking, shipping and mining would be next on the list.

Q: How does the work culture differ from home?
A: There isn’t really a competitive work culture due to the lack of a skilled work force. Knowledge and technological exposures are little low.

And finally…

Q: Is there any other advice you’d like to offer new expat arrivals?
A: Carry enough medicines back from home, as medicines are quite expensive and not easily available. Indian expats must bring electrical converters – 15 Amperes to 5 Amperes, pressure cooker, mixer/kitchen grinder to prepare masalas. Enough clothing should be taken, as it seems to be more expensive than India.

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Located in the horn of Africa Africa, Ethiopiais home to more than 91 million people, and less than 30 percent of the population has access to electricity. Under the Growth and Transformation Plan, the country’s government aims to boost energy potential through recent construction projects.

Thanks to an investment partnership between a French firm and the government, Ashegoda Wind Farm was opened at the end of October 2013. The 52 MegaWatt farm is estimated to cost slightly over 200 million euros.

Have you heard of the Grand Renaissance Dam?

Though the structure’s estimated year of completion is 2017, it hasn’t stopped the $4.7 billion project from making headlines. Announced in 2012, Grand Renaissance will be Africa’s largest. It will rest along the Nile River and run between Egypt and Ethiopia. If executed, this could be two milestones marked for the East African country’s development, but debate about the dam’s potential effect on the water supply of neighboring Egypt has halted construction.

The Nigerian government is adjusting the way it measures GDP to account for the true size of the economy. Expected to be completed at the end of 2013, Nigeria will become the largest economy in Africa, surpassing South Africa. This will undoubtedly have an impact on the opportunity for MNCs and foreign investors seeking high growth rates in Africa. I cover the rebase and its implications for MNCs in my latest podcast with FSG’s CEO, Richard Leggett, following the publication of our recent

As it currently stands, Nigeria’s GDP is based on figures from the 1990s which excludes the emergence of new industries such as the booming film industry, Nollywood, and the emergence of the telecommunications and services sectors. Nigeria’s economy is heavily driven by private consumption, and the GDP rebase will not affect this, but the rebase will fundamentally change the makeup of industries. The services sector is expected to comprise a much larger share of GDP as current figures indicate, as will wholesale and retail trade. The natural resource sector instead will decrease in terms of its share in GDP. Once the GDP is adjusted to reflect new realities, FSG expects the size of the economy to increase anywhere from 40% to 60%. Though the exact timing for the rebase remains unknown, Nigeria is expected to release preliminary numbers by the end of November 2013. Skeptics can rest assured; the fickle timeline for the rebase is likely caused by the complexity of collecting statistics and not an indication of the data’s reliability. Ghana’s GDP rebase in 2010, an exercise that increased the size of the economy by 60% overnight, took 8 years to be completed.

The imminent rebase is expected to also lead to an increase in government spending as improved debt ratios are likely to make Nigeria one of the leastleveraged countries in the world. The spending is expected to go into the government’s priority sectors including infrastructure, housing, education, and healthcare. MNCs should monitor where new funds will be allocated to and take advantage of Nigeria’s improving economic indicators to make the case for resources and stay ahead of the competition as Nigeria becomes too large for companies around the world to ignore.

Comments Off on How Africa’s natural resources can drive industrial revolution

Five years after the global financial system came perilously close to collapse, the global economic outlook is still uncertain. In Europe, GDP is still below pre-crisis levels and unemployment is at a record high. Recovery in the United States, although stronger, remains weak by historic standards, and even China, which has done so much to drive global growth, is slowing down.

Africa now has the chance, as never before, to shape its own economic future through industrialization. This will help to spread prosperity throughout the continent. An industrialized Africa will also provide a much-needed new driver of global growth. It is in everyone’s interest that Africa succeeds.

Lately many observers have been avidly discussing the recent high rates of economic growth in Africa. Speaking in Washington earlier this year, Donald Kaberuka, the president of the African Development Bank offered some cautionary words. While the good economic news from the continent may well represent a turning point from a past characterized by hopelessness, he said, Africa nevertheless remains far from a tipping point. To reach such a threshold, Africa requires major investments in three “I’s”: institutions, integration, and infrastructure. Even with the recent robust growth experienced over the past decade, Africa still suffers a major infrastructure deficit. Most of the countries have relatively weak institutions. And the regional integration project has been slow and marred by compliance and commitment deficits. Thus, as Kaberuka noted, although Africa has reached a turning point, progress to a tipping point is not an easy journey.

One of the regions in Africa that is making remarkable progress in all these “I’s” is the East African Community. The EAC’s original members — Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania — have recently been joined by Rwanda and Burundi. South Sudan is expected to join the community soon. The region has fast-tracked regional integration and has seen considerable progress in institutional reforms. Moreover, East Africa boasts much greater political stability than it has at any time in its recent past, and peace has been restored in most of the countries. The region has also seen major investments in both national and regional infrastructure; many more projects have been planned and are scheduled to commence shortly.

6. South African democracy took a turn for the interesting. During this past summer’s local government elections, Helen Zille’s Democratic Alliance party gained a surprising twenty-one per cent share of votes against the deeply entrenched African National Congress, which has ruled since the fall of apartheid. (Nelson Mandela was once its leader.) This is no small feat. The A.N.C., in spite of its corruption and multiple scandals, has held on to its dominance in part by invoking racial rhetoric and the spectre of the apartheid era, and has nearly turned South Africa into a one-party state. The D.A., led by a liberal white female politician who campaigns for multiracial progress, has had difficulty gaining voters across the racial divide. That may be changing.

And in other good news, President Jacob Zuma unexpectedly fired two top ministers and the police chief for corruption.

7. African innovation was celebrated for a third year at Maker Faire Africa. Emeka Okafor, a Nigerian, once said that he couldn’t understand why, in the tech realm, so little interesting and creative activity seemed to be coming out of sub-Saharan Africa. Curious about what good ideas from Africa looked like, he helped found Maker Faire Africa, where inventors from across the continent gather to showcase their wares—this October in Cairo, in previous years in Nairobi and Accra. The result has been astounding: mobile apps, seed-planting devices, solar-powered computer kiosks made out of recycled oil drums, paraffin lamps, and other technologies that, importantly, address the immediate needs of Africans.

8. (Some) progress in Somalia.the African Union’s peacekeeping troops, drawn from several African countries and supported by U.S. funds, drones, and contractors, appear to be prevailing in the war against Somalia’s insurgents. The situation is still bad—five hundred soldiers have been killed so far and the Somali government has yet to build any real infrastructure—but the African Union remains optimistic.

Better yet, the rains have finally started in central and southern Somalia, easing both the drought and the famine.

9. Botswana as a global leader in fighting corruption. According to the just-released Corruption Perception Index, done every year by Transparency International, Botswana was ranked thirty-two out of the hundred and eighty-three countries included in the survey, and was up four places from last year and eight places since 2009. The country ranked over half of all European nations. Botswana has launched an intense approach to weeding out corruption by setting up a Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime to investigate and bring prosecutions, and by drafting legislation that will protect whistle-blowers. Here’s hoping Botswana’s neighbors follow suit.

Thinking back on media coverage of sub-Saharan Africa this past year, including some events that made my top-ten list of the major Africa stories for 2010, I got a little depressed. With all the doom and gloom of conflict and state-sponsored repression, it’s easy to forget the strides the continent’s residents make every day in business, technology, art, and politics. So, for this year’s list, I decided to choose positive stories that seemed especially auspicious. There are always caveats to any good news, but, for now, the good is outweighing the bad. Africa is a place that is impossible to reduce to any generalities, except maybe this one: it has an enormous amount of potential. Here’s why:

1. Africa is experiencing an economic boom. Africa is predicted to have the largest economic growth of any continent over the next decade, and the burst has already begun. As domestic industries, entrepreneurs, and foreign investors prepare to take advantage of this growth, the economies of at least a dozen countries have expanded by more than six per cent a year for six or more years. Ethiopia’s grew by seven and a half per cent this year. A number of big countries appear to be headed for ten per cent. And concrete middle classes are forming across the continent: as the Economist noted, sixty million African households have annual incomes greater than three thousand dollars. By 2015, that number is expected to reach a hundred million, a number almost equivalent to India’s today.

2. South Sudan gained its independence. It has been a long time coming. Two decades of civil war in the former unified Sudan left the southern half empty of people and resources, and broke. But, despite worries to the contrary, the Sudanese government allowed the independence referendum promised in a 2005 peace treaty to proceed, and South Sudanese voted in approval by a margin of ninety-nine percent.

3. Ugandans staged Walk to Work protests in a movement partly inspired by the Arab Spring and rooted in rising fuel and food prices and overwhelming unemployment and corruption. (The movement was so named because of the hundreds of thousands of Ugandans who walk to work because they can’t afford fuel.) Why were the protests good news? President Yoweri Museveni has clung to power for a quarter century, while the opposition leader Kizza Besigye has competed tirelessly for his seat, losing three times in the past decade alone. As Besigye led thousands on the streets of the capital Kampala through tear gas and bullets, and protesters walked through the streets of other towns, it appeared that, for the first time in years, Ugandans were telling Museveni that enough was enough.

4. Two Liberian women won the Nobel Peace Prize. Though the timing was awkward—the political opposition complained that the announcement of the award, to President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (the country’s first female leader) and the activist Leymah Gbowee, came right as Sirleaf was vying for reelection—much of the country found the recognition of the work of Sirleaf and Gbowee to be well-deserved. Gbowee is particularly impressive: during what looked like a hopeless civil war in the nineteen-nineties, her peaceful, all-women prayer protests, sit-ins, and appeals to rebels to sign a peace deal effectively ended the fighting.

5. Cell phones continue to change how Africans live. The devices have proven to be invaluable: health-care workers use cell phones to track and monitor pregnant women in rural Rwanda (where the number of maternal deaths is high) and H.I.V. patients in Kenya, and Kenya’s mobile banking system, which has been called the world’s most innovative, lets Kenyans pay bills, send remittances, purchase goods and airtime, move funds among accounts, and even take out and pay back loans for entrepreneurial ventures.

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born in Transkei, South Africa on July 18, 1918. His father was Hendry Mphakanyiswa of the Tembu Tribe. Mandela himself was educated at University College of Fort Hare and the University of Witwatersrand where he studied law. He joined the African National Congress in 1944 and was engaged in resistance against the ruling National Party’s apartheid policies after 1948. He went on trial for treason in 1956-1961 and was acquitted in 1961.
After the banning of the ANC in 1960, Nelson Mandela argued for the setting up of a military wing within the ANC. In June 1961, the ANC executive considered his proposal on the use of violent tactics and agreed that those members who wished to involve themselves in Mandela’s campaign would not be stopped from doing so by the ANC. This led to the formation of Umkhonto we Sizwe. Mandela was arrested in 1962 and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment with hard labour. In 1963, when many fellow leaders of the ANC and the Umkhonto we Sizwe were arrested, Mandela was brought to stand trial with them for plotting to overthrow the government by violence. His statement from the dock received considerable international publicity.

On June 12, 1964, eight of the accused, including Mandela, were sentenced to life imprisonment. From 1964 to 1982, he was incarcerated at Robben Island Prison, off Cape Town; thereafter, he was at Pollsmoor Prison, nearby on the mainland.

During his years in prison, Nelson Mandela’s reputation grew steadily. He was widely accepted as the most significant black leader in South Africa and became a potent symbol of resistance as the anti-apartheid movement gathered strength. He consistently refused to compromise his political position to obtain his freedom.

Nelson Mandela was released on February 11, 1990. After his release, he plunged himself wholeheartedly into his life’s work, striving to attain the goals he and others had set out almost four decades earlier. In 1991, at the first national conference of the ANC held inside South Africa after the organization had been banned in 1960, Mandela was elected President of the ANC while his lifelong friend and colleague, Oliver Tambo, became the organisation’s National Chairperson.His life struggle ended in December 2013,May his soul rest in Peace.

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